<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Made of Aether and Held Together with Love by CookieDoughMe</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928082">Made of Aether and Held Together with Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe'>CookieDoughMe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haven (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Discussion of Death, Dwight's POV, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Temporary Character Death, episode 5.26 - Forever, episode fic, major character death which in canon is permanent and in this fic is not</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:22:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,770</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The fix-it fic I should have written years ago.<br/>This is intended as canon compliant up until the point in the finale when a ghostly Duke is talking to Dwight about Lizzie. The conversation starts out the same as canon, but it finishes in a <i>very</i> different place because I like to think that Dwight is smarter than the original gives him credit for.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Duke Crocker &amp; Dwight Hendrickson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Made of Aether and Held Together with Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>
    <em>~ You can save her </em>
  </b>
  <b>~</b>
  <span> Duke says without speaking. His words appear in thin air without the need for his mouth to move at all, in a way that would tell Dwight something was very, very wrong, even if he didn’t already know there is no way Duke is actually standing here with him on the hill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dwight turns to look at Lizzie. He wants to believe what Duke is telling him, of course he does. But he was also there when she died. He felt the life drain out of her. He put her body in the ground and that was years ago; how is he supposed to believe that never happened? “Is she gonna disappear like that version of Audrey I saw?” Dwight asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns back to Duke and more words appear midway between them, </span>
  <b>~ </b>
  <b>
    <em>Unless you believe she’s real </em>
  </b>
  <b>~</b>
  <span> Duke sounds persuasive; he’s encouraging him to believe the impossible. It’s a promise that if Dwight sacrifices his expectations he will be better off for it. Somehow it seems like a mirror of what Duke went through; the sacrifice that Duke made to help the town has unquestionably left Duke himself decidedly worse off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dwight fights with his puzzlement, trying to believe for the sake of his daughter. He’s not so used to fighting with his own emotions. He’s fought in a physical sense as a soldier, he’s fought to both keep and uncover secrets, and he’s fought to hold together and navigate all sorts of different relationships. But to fight with his own beliefs like this is much less familiar; even coming to terms with the Troubles in the first place didn’t feel quite this difficult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The closest thing perhaps was learning to trust Duke, even as that’s something he's had to learn time and time again. Despite often finding reasons to doubt his intentions, Dwight has to acknowledge what Duke has done for this town and the value of his contribution in fighting the Troubles. It’s a contribution that has been significant and long, and goes way beyond that final sacrifice he made in the police station as Croatoan threatened to take hold of him again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is that why Duke is here now? Speaking to him through an impossible presence that both is and is not his body? That body that was soaked full of aether when he died - is that what has turned him into some kind of ghost? He looks just like Dwight remembers him (albeit with a slightly different dress sense), not ghostly at all. It’s when he speaks, or rather doesn't speak, that the word ghost seems like the only relevant description. The voice sounds like Duke's, and it's even sort of coming from the right direction, but it still doesn't sound like it's him speaking. It seems like the words are formed out of the air itself, formed somewhere in the space between them. And then of course, there's also the fact that his lips aren't moving, there's no tension in his jaw, no tell tale bob of his Adam's Apple. No ventriloquist is this good. It's unnerving, almost more than the simple knowledge that Duke is not actually here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dwight glances back at Lizzie. Technically she isn't really here either. Some part of his brain knows that the body of the daughter that he brought to Haven in the first place lies six feet underground in the dirt, dead and cold and affected by the ravages of time in the same way that all dead bodies are. He knows that the only reason he is watching her play now is because of the aether that powers the Troubles, and he realises that for her to have any kind of physical presence at all she must be made of aether. In a similar way perhaps to how William’s men were, but he shies away from that thought when he remembers them dissolving into clouds of black oily blobs and swarming off through the sky. That happened because they were connected to William and summoned by him, in a similar way to how Duke was connected to Croatoan before he pulled himself free. Dwight turns back to Duke, very aware that Duke’s body lies in the morgue, soaked through with the aether that nearly killed him. The aether that is allowing him to have this conversation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Are Duke and Lizzie the same then, Dwight wonders; both made of aether? It’s the only conclusion to draw, he thinks, as he looks from one of them to the other. Maybe not exactly the same; Duke appears to be some kind of ghost and apparently remembers how he died. Lizzie (to Dwight’s eternal gratitude) does not. But if they are both powered by aether and aether is powered by belief…? If what Duke is saying is true for Lizzie then, then wouldn’t it be true for Duke too? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dwight looks at Duke more carefully, trying to read meaning behind his eyes. Duke isn’t talking about himself, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much, Dwight thinks. Duke doesn’t often talk about himself if he can help it. Dwight’s called Duke selfish in the past, but he knows it isn’t true; not really. Duke chose to die because he put the welfare of the town and his friends before his own. Is he doing the same again now?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duke tells him again, that if he believes in Lizzie’s presence she will stay; if he believes she is alive then she will be, even when the Troubles end for good. Dwight’s instinctive reaction to this is that it makes no sense for someone made of aether to exist when aether has been removed from the town. But then he remembers again that aether is powered by belief. The Troubles are not </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> aether afterall; they are aether combined with belief and intention, their effects made real by the powerful pull of emotional energy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Is that what Duke means? Can Dwight connect to the Trouble that brought his daughter back to him by believing in her enough? By holding strongly enough to his love for her? Can he harness the power of the emotion he feels for her, and turn it into a solid, physical thing?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And, if so, is the same possibility there for Duke? He doesn’t know whether the Trouble that brought Lizzie back and the Trouble that is allowing Duke to speak to him now are the same. But, they did both presumably come via Croatoan, and perhaps with Duke’s (unwilling) connection to him, that is close enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all that they’ve argued, there’s no part of him that thinks Duke deserves to die. It seems like a small leap in logic really, to assume that if he can keep Lizzie in Haven by believing she is real, then he may be able to do the same for Duke too. Stranger things have happened in Haven, Dwight realises. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only question in the end is, does he have enough belief for both of them?</span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>~ Even when it's the hardest thing to do, you must believe she is real ~</em>
  </b>
  <span> Duke’s unspoken sentence cuts through Dwight’s doubts and he nods. How difficult can this be, he thinks, with all that the Troubles and Haven have thrown at him over the years, just one more impossible thing to believe. One last piece of hope, one last moment of love and belief to hold on to, until the Troubles are finally at an end and the option of believing impossible things will be gone.</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to Lizzie and he thinks of the conversations they’ve had and the games they’ve played since she’s been back. She has been as real to him as ever, and it is easy to hold on to that thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns back to Duke and tries to think of everything Duke has done to help the town, but his thoughts are pulled as well towards every time they argued, every time Duke annoyed him or disagreed with him or made him angry. Duke isn’t perfect, he thinks. He isn’t perfect himself either though; some of those arguments may have been at least partly his fault. No one is perfect, he realises; perfection is not a real human quality. So; Duke isn’t perfect, but he is real. Duke tried, he did what he thought had to be done. Dwight leans into that, remembers the times they shouted at each other, and the times those arguments came to physical blows. They fought once in the tight confines of Duke’s boat and he remembers the feeling of Duke’s all-too-real fists connecting with his body and slamming him to the floor. He remembers too the first time Duke’s Trouble activated, the very different feeling as Duke’s punch sent him literally flying through thin air and off the edge of the boat into the cold water. He remembers the anger he felt when Duke threatened to hand Charlotte over to Mara, the sympathy he felt when he saw Jennifer’s body in the hospital. He remembers so many different aspects of the experiences Duke and him have shared, and while not all of them are good memories, they are solid in his mind. Just as solid as his memories of Lizzie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And suddenly, it is impossible to conceive of this dressed-in-black vision of Duke that stands in front of him as anything </span>
  <em>
    <span>but</span>
  </em>
  <span> real. Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> he is real, just as of course Lizzie is real. Sure, it might be impossible by the conventional rules of reality, but since when has that ever been relevant in Haven?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s it?” Dwight asks. “Just believe she is real? How could I not? And what about you? You are every bit as real as she is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Duke tilts his head to the side, surprised by this development. Lizzie comes running up towards them, happily calling out, “Daddy!” as she brings him news of some thing she's found, or an idea for their next game.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Both men turn to look towards her, her energy and enthusiasm the very image of life itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Squatch, I’m touched,” Duke says, and Dwight turns back towards him in time to see Duke's smile move around the rest of the sentence. “I didn’t think you had it in you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dwight smiles too, not just at the realisation - the bone-deep certainty he feels - that Lizzie is not going anywhere, and not just at Duke’s sentence either: Dwight smiles at the fact that this time it was a sentence formed not by the ghostly movement of thin air somewhere between them, but by the very real and human presence of Duke Crocker himself.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>